UsernameEmailRegionInterestAOL IMICQ IDYahoo! IDMSN IDJabber

Magic: Imbalance of Power
I've been working on this new overarching plot idea for a bit now, sort of letting it stew in my brain. It's been 300 years in the making actually. And it works into both Graves and Beyond.

It explains why some of the weirder stuff has been happening.

Essentially put: New Meridian is a magical hot spot.

Magic permeates the very air in Great Spot and Salem, Homestead and those other towns dotting the area around Meridian. While those places are protected by the magic, Meridian is an area that needs to be claimed and does not have natural protection of its own. There is magic to be wielded here and for an area with no defenses, surrounded by unclaimable land it was a challenge simply to keep it from being overrun by those who use the magic for their own means. Enter Hamlin Graves and his idea to set up a throne and Parliament to claim the land.

Fast forward a couple hundred years. What Hamlin didn't realize when he set up the throne at New Meridian is that the magic there couldn't be wielded by just one person. He believed that without use the magic would slowly dissipate or release itself. Unfortunately the magic lays untapped in New Meridian and has been slowly building (just the reverse of what he believed would happen) and no one has realized it. By setting up the kingship he essentially dammed the magic (just like a lake building behind a dammed river).

The dam is starting to leak a bit and the untapped magic has started to manifest in peculiar ways. New forms of magic are arising (like the scions), or being inherited in ways that they hadn't been previously (immortals birthing immortals, shifters popping up without any history of pan-magic in their family, so on). In the Beyond game there are empaths and people with the ability to teleport (the latter is a very new ability, but the empath abilities could easily be developed in the Graves game).

The dam is leaking worse in Beyond because no one has yet realized it, but the prophets will see soon that it might be the only way to bring home the missing monarchs (by channeling the magic into a powerful spell and thereby depleting the "lake of magic").


So. What does this all mean for the game?

Your characters could quite possibly develop a new, peculiar type of magic. Among other possibilities: this extra magic is affecting how things work, making things that were improbable more possible. It's not only affecting mages but magic itself. There are a multitude of ways this could be played out.

It's not necessarily all inclusive, but if you have a character who needs something interesting to happen to them this might be the plot to jump on. It's up to you how you want to play it, however it won't be explainable. While your characters will know something weird is happening they won't know why or how. So if you want, hop on the crazy train.